Chatham Islands to South America-has already been noticed; while another species, G. fasciatus, is found in the Chatham and Auckland Isles as well as New Zealand. A second genus peculiar to New Zealand, Neochanna, allied to Galaxias, has recently been described. Prototroctes oxyrhynchus is allied to an Australian species, but belongs to a family (Haplochitonida) which is otherwise South American. An eel, Anguilla latirostris, is found in Europe, China, and the West Indies, as well as in New Zealand! while the genus Agonostoma ranges to Australia, Celebes, Mauritius, and Central America.

Insects. The great poverty of this class is well shown by the fact, that only eleven species of butterflies are known to inhabit New Zealand. Of these, six are peculiar, and one, Argyrophenga (Satyrida), is a peculiar genus allied to the Northern genus Erebia. The rest are either of wide range, as Pyrameis cardui and Diadema bolina; or Australian, as Hamdyaas zoilus; while one, Danais erippus, is American, but has also occurred in Australia, and is no doubt a recent introduction into both countries. Only one Sphinx is recorded, and no other species of the Sphingina except the British currant-moth, Egeria tipuliformis, doubtless imported. Coleoptera are better represented, nearly 300 species having been described, all or nearly all being peculiar. These belong to about 150 genera, of which more than 50 are peculiar. No less than 14 peculiar genera belong to the Carabidæ, mostly consisting of one or two species, but Demetrida has 3, and Metaglymma 8 species. Other important genera are Dicrochile, Homalosoma, Mecodema, and Scopodes, all in common with Australia. Mecodema and Metaglymma are the largest genera. Even the Auckland Islands have two small genera of Carabidæ found nowhere else.

Cicindelidæ are represented in New Zealand by 6 species of Cicindela, and 1 of Dystipsidera, a genus peculiar to the Australian region.

The Lucanidæ are represented by two peculiar genera, Dendroblax and Oxyomus; two Australian genera, Lissotes and Ceratognathus; and by the almost cosmopolite Dorcus.

The Scarabeidæ consist of ten species only, belonging to four VOL. I.-31

genera, two of which are peculiar (Odontria and Stethaspis); and two Australian (Pericoptus and Calonota). There are no

Cetoniidæ.

There is only one Buprestid, belonging to the Australian genus Cisseis. The Elateridæ, (about a dozen species,) belong mostly to Australian genera, but two, Metablax and Ochosternus, are peculiar.

There are 30 species of Curculionidæ, belonging to 22 genera. Of the genera, 12 are peculiar; 1 is common to New Zealand and New Caledonia; 5 belong to the Australian region, and the rest are widely distributed.

Longicorns are, next to Carabidæ, the most numerous family, there being, according to Mr. Bates (Ann. Nat. Hist., 1874), about 35 genera, of which 26 are peculiar or highly characteristic, and 7 of the others Australian. The largest and most characteristic genera are Emona and Xyloteles, both being peculiar to New Zealand; few of the remainder having more than one or two species. Demonax extends to the Moluccas and S. E. Asia. A dozen of the genera have no near relations with those of any other country.

Phytophaga are remarkably scarce, only two Colaspis being recorded; and there is only a single Coccinella.

species of species of

The other orders of Insects appear to be equally deficient. Hymenoptera are very poorly represented, only a score of species being yet known; but two of the genera are peculiar, as are all the species. The Neuroptera and Heteroptera are also very scarce, and several of the species are wide-spread forms of the Australian region. The few species of Homoptera are all peculiar. The Myriapoda afford some interesting facts. There are nine or ten species, all peculiar. One genus, Lithobius, ranges over the northern hemisphere as far south as Singapore, and probably through the Malay Archipelago, but is not found in Australia. Henicops occurs elsewhere only in Tasmania and Chili. Cryptops, only in the north temperate zone; while two others, Cermatia and Cormocephalus, both occur in Australia.

Land-Shells. Of these, 114 species are known, 97 being peculiar. Three species of Helix are also found in Australia, and five more in various tropical islands of the Pacific. Nanina, Lymnaea, and Assiminea, are found in Polynesia or Malaya, but not in Australia. Amphibola is an Australian genus, as is Janella. Testacella and Limax belong to the Palearctic region.

From the Chatham Islands, 82 species of shells are known, all being New Zealand species, except nine, which are peculiar.

The Ancient Fauna of New Zealand.-One of the most remarkable features of the New Zealand fauna, is the existence, till quite recent times, of an extensive group of wingless birds, -called Moas by the natives-many of them of gigantic size, and which evidently occupied the place which, in other countries, is filled by the mammalia. The most recent account of these singular remains, is that by Dr. Haast, who, from a study of the extensive series of specimens in the Canterbury museum, believes, that they belong to two families, distinguished by important differences of structure, and constitute four genera,Dinornis and Miornis, forming the family Dinornithidæ ; Palapteryx and Euryapteryx, forming the family Palapterygidæ. These were mostly larger birds than the living Apteryx, and some of them much larger even than the African ostrich, and were more allied to the Casuariidae and Struthionidæ than to the Apterygida. No less than eleven species of these birds have been discovered; all are of recent geological date, and there are indications that some of them may have been in existence less than a century ago, and were really exterminated by man. Remains have been found (of apparently the same recent date) of species of Apteryx, Stringops, Ocydromus, and many other living forms, as well as of Harpagornis, a large bird of prey, and Cnemiornis, a gigantic goose. Bodies of the Hatteria punctata have also been found along with those of the Moa, showing that this remarkable reptile was once more abundant on the main islands than it is now.

The Origin of the New Zealand Fauna.-Having now given

*

an outline sketch of the main features of the New Zealand fauna and of its relations with other regions, we may consider what conclusions are fairly deducible from the facts. As the outlying Norfolk, Chatham, and Lord Howe's Islands, are all inhabited (or have recently been so) by birds of New Zealand type or even identical species, almost incapable of flight, we may infer that these islands show us the former minimum extent of the land-area in which the peculiar forms which characterise the sub-region were developed. If we include the Auckland and Macquarie Islands to the south, we shall have a territory of not much less extent than Australia, and separated from it by perhaps several hundred miles of ocean. Some such ancient land must have existed to allow of the development and specialization of so many peculiar forms of birds, and it probably remained with but slight modifications for a considerable geological period. During all this time it would interchange many of its forms of life with Australia, and there would arise that amount of identity of genera between the two countries which we find to exist. Its extension southwards, perhaps considerably. beyond the Macquaries, would bring it within the range of floating ice during colder epochs, and within easy reach of the antarctic continent during the warm periods; and thus would arise that interchange of genera and species with South America, which forms one of the characteristic features of the natural history of New Zealand.

T

Captain F. W. Hutton (to whose interesting paper on the Geographical relations of the New Zealand Fauna we are indebted for some of our facts) insists upon the necessity of former land-connections in various directions, and especially of an early southern continental period, when New Zealand, Australia, Southern Africa, and South America, were united. Thus he would account for the existence of Struthious birds in all these countries, and for the various other groups of birds, reptiles, fishes, or insects which have no obvious means of traversing the ocean,-and this union must have occurred before mammalia existed in any of these, countries. But such a supposition is quite unnecessary, if we consider that all wingless land-birds and some water-birds (as the Gare-fowl

and Steamer Duck) are probably cases of abortion of useless organs, and that the common ancestors of the various forms of Struthiones may have been capable of a moderate degree of flight or they may have originated in the northern hemisphere, as already explained in Chap. XI. p. 287. The existence of two, if not three, distinct families of these birds in New Zealand, proves that the original type was here isolated at a very early date, and being wholly free from the competition of mammalia, became more differentiated than elsewhere. The Hatteria is probably coeval with these early forms, and is the only relic of a whole order of reptiles, which once perhaps ranged far over the globe.

'Still less does any other form of animal inhabiting New Zealand, require a land connection with distant countries to account for its presence. With the example before us of the Bermudas and Azores, to which a great variety of birds fly annually over vast distances, and even of the recent arrival of new birds in New Zealand and Chatham Island, we may be sure that the ancestors of every New Zealand bird could easily have reached its shores during the countless ages which elapsed while the Dinornis and Apteryx were developing. The wonderful range of some of the existing species of lizards and fresh-water fish, as already given, proves that they too possess means of dispersal which have sufficed to spread them, within a comparatively recent period, over countries separated by thousands of miles of ocean; and the fact that a group like the snakes, so widely distributed and for which the climate of New Zealand is so well adapted, does not exist there, is an additional proof that land connection had nothing to do with the introduction of the existing fauna. We have already (p. 398), discussed in some detail the various modes in which the dispersal of animals in the southern hemisphere has been effected; and in accordance with the principles there established, we conclude, that the New Zealand fauna, living and extinct, demonstrates the existence of an extensive tract of land in the vicinity of Australia, Polynesia, and the Antarctic continent, without having been once actually connected with either of these countries, since the period when mammalia had peopled